Rhode Island Furniture Archive - Yale University Art Gallery

Photo: Courtesy Newport Historical Society, R.I. Click the image to enlarge	Tilt-top table
	Object number RIF738
	Maker Maker Unknown
	Dimensions Height: 27 in. (68.58 cm) Diameter of top: 28 1/4 in. (71.76 cm)
	Date 1755–80
	Current location Newport Historical Society
	Geography Possibly made in Newport, Rhode Island (view a map of Rhode Island)
	Medium Mahogany
	Marks None
	Inscriptions None
	Provenance Originally owned by Solomon Southwick (1731–1797), Newport, Rhode Island; by descent in his family; given to the Newport Historical Society, Rhode Island, 1928
	Associated names Solomon Southwick
	Construction The circular, single-board has a molded edge. To its underside are attached, with screws and wood-filled fasteners two segmental cleats with chamfered edges and ends. A rectangular block atop four turned colonnettes is doweled into each cleat, allowing the top to tilt up, and the table to be placed against a wall when not in use. The top of the turned pedestal passes through circular holes in the block and another block below, and is held in place, when the top is down, by a small wooden wedge in a rectangular slot. The pedestal below consists of a turned capital above a turned shaft and a spiral-fluted vasiform element, above a cylindrical base with a scalloped skirt. Each of the three cabriole legs is dovetailed into the cylindrical base. Attached with three modern screws to the underside of the pedestal is a metal plate. The legs have rounded tops and bottoms, and ridged, shod slipper feet. Examined by P. E. Kane, December 12, 1998; notes compiled by T. B. Lloyd.
	Bibliography Ralph E. Carpenter, Jr., The Arts and Crafts of Newport, Rhode Island, 1640–1820 (Newport, R.I.: Preservation Society of Newport County, 1954), 106, no. 78, ill. Helen Comstock, American Furniture: Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Century Styles (New York: Viking Press, 1962), 186, fig. 396. Patricia E. Kane, "The Palladian Style in Rhode Island Furniture: Fly Tea Tables," American Furniture (1999): 9–11, fig. 12.